The Nakau Programme

Summary

The Nakau Programme is a Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) Programme focusing on community  based forest protection and enhancement and sustainable development. The purpose of the programme is to provide a financing mechanism to cover the costs of forest protection and enhancement including opportunity costs to landowners who give up the right to log and/or deforest. REDD+ is one approach to PES included in the Nakau Programme.

The Nakau programme is being implemented in project sites in Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu by NGO Live and Learn Environmental Education (LLEE). In 2014 LLEE together with private consultancy the Carbon Partnership developed a methodological framework to guide the implementation of the Nakau programme . The framework methodology was initially developed for the Drawa Forest Carbon Project in Fiji, but has been designed to be applicable elsewhere for projects with forest protection and/or conservation goals and that seek to be validated under an international PES standard.  

The Nakau Methodological Framework is validated to the Plan Vivo Standard (2013) as a ‘Grouped Project’, which applies to projects that has been structured to allow for expansion of the project activity after project validation.